The Story of You and Me
by mimma
Summary: There's nothing about himself he'll like, if Takao gives up now.


**The Story of You and Me**

Takao sinks to his knees after they bow and Teikou's geniuses file out. You can tell their second-string a mile away- their jackets are just a touch too shiny and new, their faces too exuberant from victory. And of course, they're about a head shorter than their first-stringers, Teikou's elite, than Midorima Shintarou, who towers above them and apparently can't be bothered to look pleased that they've just annihilated Takao's team so badly they can't even cry.

There's no point in struggling against Teikou's genius.

There's nothing about himself he'll like, if Takao gives up now.

.0.

Takao collects articles about Midorima Shintarou. Some videos. He tapes the televised Junior High finals, although he doesn't ever rewatch them; doesn't wonder about those who litter Teikou's path to the top. They might as well draw an arrow from Teikou to the championship across the tournament brackets; at least it would save all the rest of them the humiliation. His school doesn't face Teikou again. Takao tries not to think about what it would mean to be second, fourth, fifth in the nation, and just praying that you don't come up on their side of the tournament bracket. He can't afford to think like that.

Basketball Monthly runs the obligatory yearly article on the Generation of Miracles, as though everyone doesn't know who they are, as though updated words will make it any clearer that they're overwhelming. There's never any talk of Midorima Shintarou breaking his no-miss streak. Sometimes his number sits out a game here and there, but not often. It doesn't matter. Somewhere around their second year- Midorima is the same age as him, after all, unbelievably; they all are- Teikou's scores spiral into the triple digits.

Takao creates a scrapbook, full of rows of Teikou's wins, carefully pastes the items on Midorima Shintarou in it. Then it depresses him, so he charts his own progress on the side: grown another four centimeters, makes the regulars, increases his laps and his drills. Wins some games. Loses others. Never, ever forgets. He does take note of other players, better players, but the notebook is for Midorima Shintarou first, and Takao second, and somehow they're not as special as Takao's goal.

_Aiming for Shuutoku_, he writes in his third year. An ex-pro coach and a decade of history. There's a rumor going around that the entire Generation of Miracles have been offered crazy, ridiculous things by the sports schools; immediate captaincy, exemption from homework, exemption from _exams_. There's one saying that they're all planning on going to the same school; another that says they've grown sick of each other and want to scatter themselves one to each prefecture so they don't _have_ to see each other except at tournaments. Another that's probably more wishful thinking than anything else is that they're so sick of basketball they're quitting. The truth is probably somewhere in between these.

Shuutoku is a good school, which placates his parents, and the team is stronger than ever, which is all Takao needs. The Kings of the East aren't going to scout a player like him, so Takao pulls up his grades while keeping up his training, pushing himself harder. Some of his old teammates aren't going to basketball schools, aren't going to schools with teams at all. None of them share his goal of Shuutoku. At least the Generation of Miracles can count on seeing each other, he thinks, after graduation. Every tournament will be like a reunion. Which could be awkward, if they really do hate each other now.

Takao cannot hate basketball. If he does, what will there be left of him?

When he gets in, he puts his numbered slip into the book, and writes encouraging things to himself around it. He's closer than he's ever been before.

.0.

Takao knows exactly how tall Midorima Shintarou is. He hit a hundred and ninety-five centimeters at fourteen, and then apparently stopped growing, like some kind of freaky mutant. Takao thinks he himself might have a little more in him; he's on the short side for a school like Shuutoku, even for a point guard. Their current center is almost two meters tall, and famous. Takao's sixteen. He'll grow.

Midorima Shintarou is sixteen and wears glasses and is a hundred and ninety-five centimeters and a shooting guard. He is undefeated in a match. He never misses a basket. He is what Takao has been working towards all this time, the idea of defeating him and toppling Teikou's legend.

He is Shuutoku's new ace, and he is unmistakably tall in the assembly, even among the tall hopefuls who have come to Shuutoku like Takao has. Even if Takao has not seen him in years, he's unchanged. He's here.

Well. Guess he hadn't quit after all.

.0.

When Takao sees his scrapbook again, he's possessed of an unnecessarily violent urge to burn it. Midorima Shintarou, sure to become Shuutoku's new star, when Takao had cast his eyes across the student body and isn't sure he'll make the first-string at all in his first year, in his second.

He does chuck it across the room, but it lands on his bed, and he throws himself after it. What is he doing?

It isn't just Teikou's wall he's been recording. The book is full of him, too, his progresses and goals. He drops it onto his face and breathes in the smell of old newsprint and cheap glue.

So. Just set new goals.

.0.

He fills up the book, bit by bit. Midorima Shintarou becomes Shin-chan, and his zodiac sign is added to his profile. Takao considers writing down Shin-chan's menagerie of weird habits, but he'd need another notebook, just for them. Takao keeps a running tally of the number of times he throws up during practice. It's not flattering, but his numbers keep going up; keeping up his practice during the break makes the difference between him and a lot of other junior high big fish.

Nakatani-kantoku works them like slaves. Midorima seems to thrive under this regime, and when Takao writes _new stamina training- hauling Shin-chan around like a princess_, he has to stop mid-stroke to wonder how his life became like this. Well. It's good, right? It's good. Maybe.

In time, the other regulars get added in, mostly with comments like 'serious', 'very serious' and 'serious beyond all reason'. Takao isn't joking around either, but would it kill the sempai to laugh? Tournament match-ups, Shuutoku's overwhelming numbers. Shin-chan surprises him one day while going through back issues, and seems genuinely, adorably confused about why anyone would want to read about him.

Takao starts a new page and rewrites every bit of Midorima's information, the same as that fateful first page. _Shin-chan_, he writes, next to the neat characters of Midorima's name, and pencils in his zodiac, his hobbies, thinks of the way that Midorima trains, the way that Takao is training, until all the strength leeches out of his bones.

When Takao makes the regulars, he rewrites his too, on the opposite page from Shin-chan, on the space he's purposely left blank. _Point guard_. _Hawk's eye_. He writes down his own zodiac, and then adds _best compatibility_ next to it. It makes him absurdly pleased to see it there, as though writing it down has made it official. He's going to be Shin-chan's partner now.

.0.

Around the time he's sticking in the pictures of himself and Shin-chan he bought after the school festival, Takao realizes he may be kind of a stalker. He even has some of the tape Shin-chan uses on his fingers in it, stolen from Shin-chan's hands. He supposes he has to fess up now, that this is no longer a Midorima Shintarou basketball rivalry notebook and but has been- become- some kind of Shin-chan love-fest. Sure, their rivals are in there too (Kuroko Tetsuya: _pass specialist_, Kagami Taiga: _drives Shin-chan insane_) but this is really sort of a tiny shrine to Midorima now; the transcription of the time that Shin-chan condescends to reveal he is actually cognizant of the basketball practice of passing, the highlights of the training camp, the fruits Midorima prefers and will lick off his hand, savouring them quietly. Takao doesn't have to rely on word of mouth and magazine articles now, and so he records Midorima down himself. Which has become kind of stalkery. Probably kind of girly, too. Takao should stop borrowing his sister's glitter pens.

Well. It's okay. Shin-chan never has to see this. He never has to know that when Takao says,_ my aim was you_, he meant, _because you seemed unreachable_, _because I have held you in my heart for so long_.

Because he can touch Shin-chan now, and that seems to make all the difference.

At first he wrote things down to make them easier to remember, to encourage himself, so that he could open its pages and look into them and remember what it is he's working towards.

Now he pastes in things and writes little captions and wants to never forget.

.0.

Shin-chan hasn't been offered exemption from exams after all, or at least he hadn't accepted them. He does accept Takao's offer for them to study, or possibly for him to cluck over Takao's grades and for Takao to then steal his notes and make a fortune selling photocopies. It's made before Takao can remember the notebook is there, sitting _right there_ on his desk, and it says _basketball_ on the front, innocuously, because he's already thinking what he'll probably put it in (Midorima Shintarou:_ top in school_, Takao thinks, probably would have put that in earlier if Midorima had had to take an entrance exam like the rest of them) and Shin-chan picks it up and asks what it is.

Obviously it's the history of their love, Takao tells him, and laughs when Shin-chan dangles it between his fingers like a girl touching something gross.

Something like that, anyway. It's the story of you and me.


End file.
